Female Igbo Architect who is all about inspiring confidence and has an opinion about everything.

5 WAYS TO AVOID LOOSING YOUR THESIS AS A FINAL YEAR STUDENT

As a final year student in any tertiary institution, there are a lot of fears that you may have. Some of which may include your supervisor’s red pen (my greatest fear), the printer at the cyber cafe malfunctioning, lack of resource materials and finally, loosing your thesis file on your personal computer. Infact, the last one should be the greatest fear of all.

When I wrote the thesis for my undergraduate programme, I had the scare of my life. I had written my thesis up-to chapter 4 and it was approved by my supervisor up till that level. One day, when I wanted to make some corrections on it, the file suddenly became inaccessible. I couldn’t access over 80 pages of months of research (of course you know I mean google. God bless google) and I felt like dying. I tried everything I could but to no avail. The file was lost and I had no back up so I had to start afresh.

This hasn’t only happened to me, it has happened to many other students in different ways. I know a friend who had an 8 a.m meeting with his supervisor to submit Chapter 1-3 and his laptop crashed by 4 a.m and just like me, he had no backup elsewhere and his hard drive was damaged. I advised him to go and ask his village people some questions lol. On a serious note though, why does this keep happening even after we see it happen to other people. I’ll tell you:

Carelessness

In this post, I will list out measures to take to avoid loosing our projects unexpectedly.

1. Antivirus.

This is the first thing to ensure that you have on your personal computer before you start any work on your thesis. Having a good Anti-virus software that periodically scans your system and prevents it from getting infected by any kind of virus will save you a lot of problems. I use Norton Anti-virus on my system (although right now its even outdated) but there are many other good applications that can keep your system safe from malware. You can go to Best Antivirus Software and Apps 2017 to find out good softwares for your personal computer.

2. Protect your ports.

“Guy abeg you get movie?” – This question right here has caused more problems and disasters than the famous “Are you done?”. Avoid letting people insert their USB storage devices into your system especially when you’re sure if the anti-virus software on your pc is up-to-date. You may never know what dump he/she has previously inserted their USB device unprotected (pun definitely not intended).

3. Backup. Backup. Backup.

It was only a matter of time before this one came up. There can never be enough back ups. Technology has made it easier to transfer files to other storage devices and also to upload them to online storage. For example, I own a phone with an 8 GB memory card and a 500 GB capacity hard drive. These are my backup stations. Whenever I make serious changes or update my thesis (currently doing my postgraduate thesis) I quickly replace the old files on these devices. I also have the google drive and dropbox apps on my phone where I upload my thesis periodically to keep it up-to-date. If you are too lazy to go through all these processes and you own an android phone with internet connection, you can simply mail your thesis to yourself and it automatically will be saved in your email. When you need it, you simply need to go to your sent items and download it.

4. Split your chapters.

New huh? A guy in my class does this. His chapters are separated into different files including his reference so that in a situation where chapter 3 for instance is corrupted, chapter 1,2,4 and 5 with his references would still be intact. Smart abi? I found out about this technique late but I have my work on dropbox, my email and my hard drive already.

5. Treat your PC with care.

Remember my friend whose laptop crashed by 4 a.m? What damaged his laptop was the fact that he usually over charged his laptop. There are many wrong practices that can make your laptop decide that it’s not doing again lol. Some inclue: Placing it on a soft surface (like a bed) while using it, leaving it plugged all the time, allowing dust accumulation and so many others. I’m not a techie but you can go to How to Take Good Care of Your Laptop Computer to learn more about this.

Do you know any other ways to avoid loosing a thesis file unexpectedly, drop a comment and let’s learn from you. P.S did you enjoy the memes? I did too, the Samuel L. Jackson bit cracked me up.

About Me

Kedu? My name Ifeoma, I am Igbo and I am an Architect (well in-view). Here, I like to talk about everything that has to do with cultivating confidence and esteem in everyone especially young people like me. These include, articles, stories, poems and reviews.
I also share on here, the experiences I have during the Natural Hair Journey I started on the 3rd of October, 2015.
I hope I touch your life as you go through my blog and I also hope that through you, I will touch many more. Thanks alot!